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How High and/or Low Will High and Low Go?

Coming on the heels of the Hollywood Remake seminar held in conjunction with this year's TIFFCOM market is news of a high profile remake of Akira Kurosawa's High and Low (Tengoku to Jigoku, 『天国と地獄』). Being one of my favourite Japanese films of all time, I felt I had to jot something down.

The principals involved are Martin Scorsese as executive producer (not confirmed), Mike Nichols as director, Scott Rudin as producer, and David Mamet as screenwriter. Background on the story can be found in Variety and The Guardian (trivia: the Guardian group now own Screen International).

But is it a remake of Kurosawa's 1963 film or a fresh adaptation of Ed McBain's 1959 87th Precinct novel "King's Ransom"? Scorsese is obviously a film guy to the marrow of his bones, yet it still caught me off guard when he mentioned that his proposed version of Silence (see my Oct. 2006 entry) would in fact be based on the Shinoda film rather than starting from scratch with Endô's book. Perhaps that will be the case here as well. Does anybody have Mamet's script? The first draft was done in '99.

One look at Nichols' filmography and it's obvious that he's very adept at depicting characters of all social strata. Nonetheless, I'd rather have someone well versed in crime and/or suspense. Scorsese himself would of course be at the top of the list. Michael Mann (who took over Scorsese project The Winter of Frankie Machine -- great script) would be another. What other (mainstream) directors do you think would do a good job?

Lest we forget TV Asahi's remake of the film, which aired in September 2007. I recorded it but only watched part way. It was artfully made enough for a TV movie but needless to say, something was missing. I won't even get into that mid-90s Mel Gibson movie...

TIFF Days Final - Awards

Attended the closing ceremony of Tokyo IFF today -- you can read my summary of the awards handed out here. Some brief highlights from today and that'll be it for this year:


- Ichikawa Jun's wife Sachiko tearfully accepting the award for buy a suit on behalf of her late husband.

- Glad to see Vincent Cassel win best actor for Public Enemy No. 1 (see my previous post). Jury member Michael Gruskoff compared his performance to DeNiro in Raging Bull.

- During the photo slide recap of all the 15 competition titles, a short video was shown in the corner with one of the six jury members praising the merits of the film. Good idea!

- Jon Voight doing his best impersonation of Mifune in Rashomon at the post-ceremony reception. He was pretty cool through the whole festival, I think.

- Nikita Mikhalkov and Chen Kaige talking about their love for Kurosawa's work upon accepting the Akira Kurosawa Award. Mikhalkov said he drank whiskey with the master. It must've been Suntory Reserve...

TIFF Days 2 - Mesrine Returns / Seijun Suzuki / Godzilla and more

Well, TIFFCOM is now over and it's the second last day of TIFF. I thought I'd be able to get three blog reports up, but with running around the market, attending seminars, dinners, and trying to watch some films (I squeezed in about 7 in the end) the blog fell by the wayside as I expected. Nonetheless, some highlights:

- Finally getting to see Part 2 of French gangster chronicle Public Enemy No. 1 (I saw Part 1 in Toronto). It was quite different in style and pacing, not unlike the surprise of seeing Pusher 3. After stints in various maximum security prisons, Jacque Mesrine's mindset gradually becomes more revolutionary which lends the second installment additional psychological depth after Part 1's visceral thrills. That's not to say there isn't plenty of action -- suspenseful prison escapes (with upcoming bond villain Matthew Almaric), lots of chaotic street shootouts, and of course the very public "assassination" that ended Mesrine's reign. There's also one brutal sequence involving a journalist who wrote a less than flattering article about Mesrine -- it's actor Vincent Cassel's most furious display in the whole series. The wordless scenes of suspense and Mesrine's interactions with police effectively channel Jean-Pierre Melville. Songs such as The Clash's "London Calling" and Sugarhill Gang's "Rapper's Delight" add to the amazing period detail and costumes used to re-create the late 70s, by which time Mesrine's gut hung well over his belt. Needless to say, Cassel is brilliant. Special mentions to Almaric, who does amazing things without any dialogue, and veteran Gérard Lanvin as Mesrine's anti-establishment partner.

- Seeing Godzilla vs. the Smog Monster (Gojira tai Hedora) on the big screen as part of the "natural TIFF" program of eco-minded films. Director Bannô Yoshimitsu (坂野義光監督) was in attendance and spoke about the origins of the film (see this 2006 article for more background) and mentioned the on-again, off-again 3-D IMAX Godzilla film (he referred to the US Godzilla '98 as an "iguana"). Bannô kindly gave an open invitation to anyone in the audience to contact him with ideas or to discuss movies. He also attended every seminar with themes of international co-production -- very enthusiastic for 77.

- Speaking of senior citizen power, Suzuki Seijun (85!) took the stage at the Tokyo Project Gathering reception, where his new project A Goldfish of the Flame was participating. He laughed as he spoke about his broken down body and ill health, but threatened to run laps around the hall to convince people of his strong will to keep directing. "Take a chance on me" was his message to potential co-production partners. An excerpt from the TPG program book:

"A Goldfish of the Flame depicts the slimy, erotic and imaginary exchange between an old novelist immersed in his writing and a goldfish in a fishbowl...Novelist Kamiyama and his bedridden wife live in a house in downtown Tokyo. One of his few pleasures in life is to gaze upon the red goldfish in the fishbowl. One day, as he speaks gently to his goldfish, it transforms into a human girl, who demands to become Kamiyama's lover. So begins this strange relatonship between writer and goldfish."

Check out this entry on Edmund Yeo's blog for some good photos and a summary of TPG (where he had a project, too). My friend Sylvia Wong was also presenting her first project as producer -- Wee Li Lin's wedding stalker drama Forever. Good luck to both of them.

- A heads up for Yatterman fans going to AFM -- Nikkatsu told me you'll be able to see an extra 10 seconds of footage (it was supposed to be 15 minutes). The CG work to be done is massive.

- Hexagon Pictures' lineup presentation (see link to article below) included a live karate demonstration from 17-year-old newbie Rina Takeda, dressed in her high school seifuku. With 7 years of serious training under her (black) belt she seems poised to be Japan's biggest female martial arts export since Sue Shiomi. Not sure if High-Kick Girl will be the vehicle to do it, but did I mention that she's only 17?

- I think the TIFF and TIFFCOM planners did a much better job this year of setting up parties and gatherings where people could meet and talk. Despite legitimate grumbles about whether TIFF is as international as its image projects, it felt moreso with these events.

On the business side here are some TIFFCOM-related articles, written alongside our recently crowned Asia Deputy Editor, Jean Noh -- great to have you here.

"TIFFCOM wraps successful edition despite competition"

"TIFFCOM: Asmik Ace dresses Asia in Handsome Suit"

"TIFFCOM: Asia strives for regional, multi-platform content"

"TIFFCOM: Japan's Hexagon unveils five-picture slate"

"TIFFCOM: Tokyo delegates talk Japanese remakes"

TIFF Days - Echo of Silence / Tezuka Osamu / The Shonen Merikensack

It was long but enjoyable first day at TIFF. After an early morning orientation session I caught a screening of competition title Echo of Silence (Kotoba no nai Fuyu,『コトバのない冬』), the directing debut of actor Watabe Atsuro, who plays a key supporting role. It was a very modest but well-acted relationship drama set in the snowy environs of a small town in Hokkaido (not far from Yubari). Star Takaoka Saki (高岡早紀) gives a good performance as a thirty-something older sister who's finally making moves to leave the nest.

After a quick lunch I caught a collection of Tezuka Osamu animation screening in the animecs Tokyo program at Cinemart Roppongi, celebrating the 80th year of the master's birth. The four titles included newly struck prints of Tales of a Street Corner (Aru Machikado no Monogatari,『ある街角の物語』) and Legend of the Forest Part 1 (Mori no Densetsu Part 1,『森の伝説 PART-1』). Legend was originally meant to be a quartet of films but sadly was never completed. However, added to the end of Part 1 was the climactic nature vs. machine battle of Part 4. One of Tezuka's longtime staff members, Suzuki Shin'ichi (who also runs the Suginami Animation Museum), was on hand to talk about working with Tezuka and mentioned his love of Disney and classic WB animation. The range of styles Tezuka could work in was astounding. I happen to be in the middle of Tezuka's manga Apollo no Uta, which is brilliant.

Later on was the green carpet procession. I've sweated it out in the journalist pit in past editions so I decided to hang out on the upper levels above the Roppongi Hills Arena and watch it on the big video screen. First thing that comes to mind is Miyazaki Aoi in her sparkling miniskirt with punkette leather jacket and hair (see video here). Tony Leung, Kaneshiro Takeshi and jury head Jon Voight (who worships Kurosawa and other Japanese filmmakers) looked good and proceeded well. Prime Minister Aso also caused a stir when he showed up -- unlike most Japanese PMs, he seems to have a pulse. Links to more carpet footage here (Japanese only).

Finishing off the evening in filthy and furious style was Kudô Kankurô's The Shonen Merikensack (『少年メリケンサック』) -- see the poster pictured above, snapped in the subway passage leading to Roppongi Hills. It's late and I'm too zonked to review the film, but punk songs are short and hit hard, so let me recap it that way: cow shit, guitar violence, porn mags, fart fines, punk riots, 70s boy bands, brother fights, gay record moguls, Aikawa Show kaitenzushi, anime sequences, beef bowl boyfriend, hemmeroidal drummer, bosozoku, mute singer, puke, gob, matsuri punk, the Sid Vicious of Koenji (love that), and as much Aoi-chan as you can take.

TIFF Days

Beginning with the CoFesta opening ceremony this evening at Omotesando Hills, I'll be immersed in films, the TIFFCOM market, Tokyo Project Gathering and a bunch of other events over the next 11 days.

Posts on here will be sporadic, but I hope to jot down some impressions of world premieres at TIFF such as The Shonen Merikensack, Ichikawa Jun's Buy A Suit and Oshii Mamoru action omnibus Kill to name a few.

A couple of recent Screen articles in the meantime (don't forget, Asia news stories are free now):

"Toho reaches $600m milestone in nine months"

"Oshii, Production I.G develop animated samurai film"

Tokyo Sonata in the UK / All Night Kurosawa in Tokyo

The news that Kurosawa Kiyoshi's Tokyo Sonata would be hitting the UK in January 2009 has been floating around since after Cannes but logboy has sussed out the exact date as January 30th. It's being distributed by Eureka! and they have an official site up which is only a placeholder at the moment. It's been passed without cuts, too (not that there's anything to cut).

Maybe it was because of the vertical Japanese text in the domestic press materials, but I never noticed the piano-shaped dining table. ダー。

There will also be a Masters of Cinema video release. I'll let logboy post here about the possible release window and formats.


And for any Kurosawa fans here during the Tokyo International Film Festival, you won't want to miss the all-night "World of Kiyoshi Kurosawa" program screening as part of the Director's Angle series.

See collected Tokyo Sonata posts here.

Nouvelle Tsunami Quatre: Flavor of Happiness in France

In a continuing series on this blog, which came about quite organically, I look at the cinematic ties between France and Japan.

Following up on my recent post about Flavor of Happiness, which opened in cinemas this weekend, came news of distributor Zootrope Films' planned release of the film in France. Zootrope picked up rights after Cannes (see here) and will release the film on a surprisingly wide 40 screens. Number of screens in Japan? 19.

There have of course been cases where Japanese films have had higher profiles overseas than at home (Naomi Kawase, anyone?), but it's very rare for a film with famous lead actors to get a wider bow overseas.

Kitano Takeshi movies have gone as high as 100 screens in France, as will the upcoming release of 20th Century Boys. The French have always been keen on J-cinema, but interest seems to be ramping up. Needless to say, it's great to see a small, original film not based on a manga or TV drama get a chance like this, too.

Not convinced that Japanese films are hot? Take a look at Nakatani Miki in her black mini China dress for Saturday's butai aisatsu. Very nice.

See collected Flavor of Happiness posts here.

See previous Nouvelle Tsunami posts here.

À votre santé!

Miura Kazuyoshi: Death by Cowardice

The saga has ended. When Miura Kazuyoshi threw in the towel in Saipan and agreed to continue his legal battle in Los Angeles, nobody -- not prosecutors, not his defense attorneys, not the media, not this blogger, thought someone with an ego that big would take the cowardly way out and commit suicide rather than face justice. Read the news here and there.

I can't imagine what Miura Kazumi's family must be going through and any glimmer of hope in the Shiraishi Chizuko cold case has now been extinguished. Detectives Rick Jackson, Tim Marcia and Jimmy Sakoda did amazing jobs.

We'll never know if an American court would've found Miura guilty of conspiracy to commit murder, but I think his final act speaks for itself. Miura is dead, and with it「ロス疑惑」...

Update:

Kazumi's family released the following statement:

「がっかりした。言いたいことがあるならアメリカでも正々堂々と戦ってほしかった。これから真実が明らかになることを期待していたのに」

"We're very disappointed. If [Miura] had a case to make, we wanted him to fight fairly and openly in the US as well. We had expected the truth to finally come out..."


Now that things have ended in this way, I wonder if the evidence that was to be presented by prosecutors will ever be disclosed.


Further ironies:

- The holding cell where Miura took his own life was blocks from the scene of the original crime.

- The hospital where Miura was taken after being discovered hanged in his cell was where Kazumi was rushed after being shot.

- Prosectuors were in fact preparing to mount a case in the Shiraishi Chizuko case as well.


Also, author and ex-LAPD homicide detective Steve Hodel links to my original post from his news page.


Update 2: Kazumi's family has released a full statement. I won't translate the whole text, but they talk about Miura's long history of crime, dating back to his teenage years, and how the Japanese justice system values the rights of criminals over victims (commonly heard in the US).

They of course express disappointment that the case is now seen as "closed" with Miura's death, but plea for "disclosure of the proof against Miura, so that we may know exactly what type of crime he committed." Without that, they say, "the spirits of Kazumi and Chizuko will never be at peace."

As this blog is predominantly about film, I originally considered mentioning "Nakagawa-esque visions of karmic retribution" when this news broke but thought it somewhat over-the-top. Perhaps an uncontrollable fear came over Miura in the end, one that had nothing to do with US justice system. We'll never know.

See all the collected posts on the Miura Kazuyoshi case here.

Kaige and Mikhalkov Win Kurosawa Award

Fans of directors Nikita Mikhalkov and Chen Kaige may be interested to know that they are this year's recipients of the Akira Kurosawa Award, to be presented at the Tokyo International Film Festival. You can read more about it on Screen here.

Flavor of Happiness Review

Mark Schilling gives Flavor of Happiness (Shiawase no Kaori, 『しあわせのかおり』) a big 4.5/5 in The Japan Times here.

The film opens theatrically at Cineswitch Ginza, among other locations, tomorrow. If you're learning Japanese it's a good film to practice with -- Fuji Tatsuya's Chinese-born chef speaks in a clear and simple manner.

Read all my previous posts about subtitling and sales of Flavor of Happiness here.

K-20 Subtitles / Body of Lies

Phew, finished off a draft of the subtitles for K-20: Legend of the Mask (this is the official export title now) after decompressing from Pusan. Great to see it with most of the CG in place, though still without music and full sound design. It should be quite the cinema spectacular when it's all done. If you happen to be attending AFM this year you'll be able to see the world premiere.

Read collected posts that mention K-20 here.

When things get busy and there are layers of work related to Japanese (and Asian) films, sometimes the best pick-me-up is a bold, brassy, big-breasted Hollywood film. On the menu this evening was Ridley Scott's Body of Lies (bigged up to World of Lies in Japan -- perhaps a more appropriate title -- BoL sounds like Body of Evidence).

Very smart, forceful and entertaining filmmaking! I always like DiCaprio, and now that he's filled out and developed more character with age he's great in roles like this. I enjoyed his CIA operative who's torn between keeping America safe and dealing with the miserable reality on the ground in the Middle East. The film whisks us between Iraq, Turkey, Dubai, Aman, Syria, Amsterdam and Manchester to name some of the films many locations.

I think Virusety critic Todd McCarthy overdid his criticisms of the film because that's what important critix of important films need to do. Although Russell Crowe's performance feels like parts of others combined, his slobbish CIA string-puller is as mundane as he is terrifying, as he casually brushes off collateral deaths while taking his kids to soccer matches -- constantly having a two-track conversation with DiCaprio through his earpiece and his all-American family. DiCaprio,'s character, on the other hand, is fluent in Arabic and enjoys aspects of the local life in Aman, Jordan (the film skillfully delineates the many countries in the region) widening the gap between their world-views.

The highlight for me were all the scenes between DiCaprio and an actor called Mark Strong, who plays Jordanian intelligence czar Hani. William (The Departed) Monahan's dialogue crackles when these two get together. Something about their screen time recalls the scenes between Jeff Bridges and a young Andy Garcia in the Robert Towne-penned 8 Million Ways to Die.

The drama and acting are what impressed me most -- it goes without saying that the action is kinetic, often brutal and sometimes epic. This is Ridley Scott!

Body of Lies opens on December 20th in Japan -- the same day as K-20 in fact. Young women and couples will be choosing between DiCaprio and Kaneshiro. In the words of Morrissey, "I Can Have Both".

Update: Our US editor, Mike Goodridge, has a short but good interview with director Ridley Scott up on Screen today. Read it here.

Tokyo FILMeX Lineup 2008

Today was the press conference announcing the entire lineup for this year's Tokyo FILMeX, now in its 9th edition. You can read my summary of the lineup on Screen here. For all the skinny on every last film as well as ticket info, see the official site here (日本語はこちら).

For those in Tokyo (or who will be), don't forget that all titles are subtitled in English and the catalog is fully bilingual (translated by Don Brown, Ben Dimagmaliw and myself).

Jury head Nogami Teruyo (and here) was present to say a few words, as were Japanese directors Sono Sion, Kumakiri Kazuyoshi and Hamaguchi Ryusuke. Sono said that with Love Exposure (Ai no Mukidashi, 『愛のむきだし』), which Phantom Film was selling at the Pusan market, he intended to make a 90-minute film but that it kept growing. "If you're okay after the first 20 minutes, challenge yourself to watch the whole [237]," he said.

Ogata Ken (1937-2008)

As you may have heard, famed actor Ogata Ken (緒形拳) passed away today. I'm sure there will be quite a few obituaries across the internet. I of course wrote one for Screen today, which you can read here.

One of the lesser known but still great films he starred in was The Catch (Gyôei no Mure, 『魚影の群れ』), directed by the late Sômai Shinji (相米慎二監督). It happened to be the first film I ever reviewed for Midnight Eye, almost exactly six years ago today. You can read the review here.

Notes from Pusan pt. 2

Got back from Pusan yesterday evening (and basically passed out until morning).

In the end I was only able to see four films, including the aforementioned Nightmare Detective 2 (I liked it!) and affecting Korean drama Treeless Mountain, which I found out today will be in competiton at FILMeX. I'll try to write more about what I saw later.

Some more highlights:

- Large and incredibly reasonable blowfish dinner with the Screen Asia team and CB (thanks for your stories and wisdom).

- Sharing a cab with the producer of Lost Song. At the time my brain was frazzled and I couldn't connect the title with the film, which I had in fact seen. One of the best Canadian films made this decade!!

- Running into Campaign and Mental director Sôda Kazuhiro (see my September 25 entry?) and his lovely wife. Will be writing something about Mental soon.

- All the enthusiastic young film fans on the beach at PIFF village (see top photo). Some people wanted to take photos of and with me -- this is what Japan would've been like up until maybe the mid-90s. They would also form massive lines in the lobby of the Grand Hotel (bottom photo) on nights when stars were passing through.

Some links to additional Pusan-related stories I wrote or contributed to:

Asian Film Finance: Asian film funds on the rise

Japan to launch film commission as part of policy shift

Asian Film Market wraps quiet but productive third edition

Until next year! 또 만납시다!

Notes from Pusan pt. 1

Arrived in Pusan on Thursday evening, surprised to see the airport had been completely modernized. I made my way to my hotel on Haeundae beach just in time for the opening event (top picture).

Some highlights from the first day and a half:

Meeting Kodomo no Kodomo star Amari Haruna -- so cute! The film is screening here as an international premiere in the Window on Asian Cinema program.

Visiting the the PPP venue and seeing the Arrested Memories team in action. The fine women (and it is all women) at Finecut are working hard to help make Sabu's project a reality. There's now a third shooting scenario in addition to Korea and Europe and some interesting meetings lined up.

As with last year, the parties are a great place to put names with faces in this day and age of a million emails.

The weather! It's like summer, but cools down considerably after it gets dark.

Hope to actually see four or five films while I'm here (which is harder than it sounds). Looking forward to the midnight screening of Nightmare Detective 2 tomorrow. I was told a third part is in the cards.

You can read about what new titles Japanese companies have brought to market in yesterday's story on Screen here.

Nouvelle Tsunami 3: Yakuza Eiga

In my recent posts about the "Japan in Black" program at the just wrapped San Sebastian International Film Festival (trace back from my Sept. 20 entry) I forgot to mention the premiere of Parisian documentarian Yves Montmayeur's Yakuza Eiga, which I briefly touched on in my first "Nouvelle Tsunami" post last December. You can read a synopsis and watch a clip of Yakuza Eiga here.

I've met Yves on two or three occasions in Japan -- he's a very enthusiastic guy and has gradually become the go-to-filmmaker for French documentaries on cutting edge cinema, particularly Asian directors. I knew that he was working on Yakuza Eiga very diligently and that my friends at Toei (who of course mass produced pictures in said genre) helped him out.

Yakuza Eiga has gotten some good coverage in Japanese, too. Journalist Nakayama Harumi, whom I met at this year's Pia film fest, wrote this article on Cinema Today. No time to translate it but he tells a couple of good stories involving kidnapping and arrests. I've heard a few of my own tales about unannounced "set visits" and who's for real/just acting.

Edit: For those in the Kansai region, the film is playing at the Kyoto Film Festival on Oct. 11.